Measuring Central Bank’s Policy Effectiveness in Affecting Intention to Use New Payment Platform During The COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

This study evaluates the effectiveness of central bank policy in influencing intention to use a new payment platform, QRIS (Quick Response code Indonesian Standard). The evaluation is hindered by the contemporaneous emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic, which acts as a confounding factor in adopting the new payment instrument. To disentangle the effect of those variables, we collected data from 617 respondents consisting of customers and merchants, employed a structural equation model with SmartPLS, asses fourteen hypotheses with demographic factors included as moderating factors. The result of the study successfully disentangles the policy impact from the pandemic impact and separates the risk of a pandemic from common risks. We verify that the pandemic and government intervention had significant direct and indirect effects on the intention to use QRIS, with the habit being the most influential component, outperforming other technology adoption determinants. This study, therefore, contributes to the advancement of the literature on the topic of technology adoption and government intervention and suggests that this measuring approach can be used as a complementary instrument to assess the impact of central bank policy on the public.